September 22, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

Last week, I had a chance to speak on the phone with the lively and loquacious Bai Ling, co-star of Lionsgate’s recently released Crank 2:High Voltage, which topped the rental and sell-through charts last week. Much fun was had as the spirited actress discussed her love of action and adventure, as well as the respect she felt for her Crank co-star Jason Statham.

VB: Over the past decade or so, you’ve become quite a proficient action and adventure heroine, with lots of guns and fighting and running and jumping and so on….It’s must feel like a second childhood—except for the guns part.
Bai Ling: A second childhood—I like that. Well, like a child, with eve...Read More

September 15, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

A funny, sophisticated, caustic-as-all-hell writer who made his bones penning gags for the likes of Sid Caesar, Bob Hope and George Burns, before inking the Broadway smash A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and the great Hollywood comedy Tootsie and then becoming the creative force behind the landmark TV series M*A*S*H, Larry Gelbart died this week at the age of 81.

Rather than track through the rest of his successes (which were plentiful), I wanted instead to share a handful of passages from a lively essay he wrote for the liner notes of Shout! Factory’s upcoming It&rsq;...Read More

September 11, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

The fourth quarter gets a substantial holiday kick with Warner’s release of the comedy Four Christmases on  Nov. 24 (prebook Oct. 13). Starring Vince Vaughn and Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon as a couple struggling to visit  all four of their divorced parents on Christmas Day, the film was released theatrically last November to a box office gross of $120 million. It film features an able supporting cast of fellow Oscar winners that includes Robert Duvall, Mary Steenburgen, Jon Voight and Sissy Spacek.  

The single disc DVD ($28.98) includes both widescreen and fullscreen editions of the film, while the Blu-ray disc ($35.99) features such exclusive bonus content as a holiday mea...Read More

September 10, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Last night I took my first dip (of what is sure to be many) into Shout! Factory’s much anticipated “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show.”: The Complete Series, which is due out on Oct. 20. It’s been nearly a quarter of a century since the show premiered in 1986 on then fledgling cable network Showtime—Garry Shandling had accepted an offer from Showtime to create his own TV series, no questions asked—and neither Shandling or the network have looked back since.

I haven’t yet dived into the actual episodes of Shandling’s surr...Read More

September 9, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

The future lands in the fourth quarter when Warner unleashes Terminator Salvation on Dec. 1 (prebook Oct. 13) on both DVD ($28.98) and a Blu-ray two-disc edition ($35.99).

The fourth entry in the lucrative Terminator series grossed $125 million at the box office this summer. It stars Christian Bale as John Connor as a post-apocalyptic soldier who leads the human resistance against the artificial intelligence system Skynet and its army of robotic warriors.

The single-disc DVD will be available in both widescreen and fullscreen versions, while the Blu-ray two-disc set will include a theatrical version, which clocks in at 115 minutes,  and a director’s c...Read More